I always love looking at the archive shoes of Foster & Son, the ones that were made more than 50+ years ago and seeing how different they were in just about every aspect of shoemaking from the proportion of the lasts, to the fineness of the closing to the amounts of stitch per inch on the welt and last to the little details on the pattern that set them apart from the rest. Many of those details are so subtle that they might go unnoticed. For example, what caught my eye was the quarter/facing of this semi brogue in front, were the brogueing on the top line of the quarter has it’s traditional one large hole, two small ones but then so subtly transitions to one medium sized hole all down the facing, without having a separation in the leather pieces. That small touch is not something you often see these days but was a common sign of shoes from those time periods. It’s nice to see them, appreciate them and then let them influence your creativity!
